Description of the attraction
Today Starovagankovsky Lane is located in the center of Moscow, and in the 15th century, near the capital, there was the village of Vagankovo, which, when New Vagankovo appeared in the 16th century, became known as the old one. Vagankovo was a princely country estate, therefore it was equipped with a corresponding scale.
One of the attractions of Starovagankovsky Lane is the Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. Next to it was the Exaltation of the Cross Church, which, unfortunately, has not survived.
The exact date of the foundation of the Nikolsky temple is unknown, but its history goes back more than five centuries. At the beginning of the 16th century, the temple was rebuilt in stone, the order was given by Vasily III, and the Italian architect Aleviz Fryazin was invited for the construction. The temple had a main altar and a side-altar in honor of St. Sergius of Radonezh. In the 17th-18th centuries, the temple had one more side-chapel, but to date, only the side-chapel of St. Sergius of Radonezh has survived. The chapel of the Forty Martyrs of Sebastia was dismantled in the 1890s, as it was declared dilapidated. Today the site of the former chapel is marked with a wooden cross.
In the middle of the 18th century, the church was rebuilt at the initiative of the parishioners themselves. The basement of white stone, built in the 16th century, has survived from the old building, over which a new stone building was erected. In the second half of the 18th century, a stone bell tower was also built.
The temple suffered during the Patriotic War of 1812, and the revival of its former splendor took place only in the late 19th - early 20th centuries.
In Moscow, the temple is located next to a notable architectural monument - the Pashkov House, which is now occupied by the Russian State, former Leninist, Library. In the 19th century, this house housed the Rumyantsev Museum, and the Nikolskaya Church was his home church. Among the most famous visitors to the temple are the writer Nikolai Gogol and the publicist Mikhail Pogodin.
With the advent of Soviet power, the temple was deprived of its valuables, crosses and bells, and the building, like the Pashkovsky house, was transferred to the library. It was used as a warehouse for literature. The transfer of the church building and its restoration took place in the 90s.
